Bat Speed -- Baseball Hitting Forum

Posted by: Torque (roscoethewestie@comcast.net) on Fri Sep 11 11:00:25 2009

> I practiced the "fence drill" almost everyday when working on my hitting mechanics. I was a very successful hitter with plenty of pop at 5'8. I've been accused of teaching linear mechanics then told in the same breath that my swing is rotational. Growing up learning from well-learned hitters at Florida State, I was never taught linear hitting or rotation hitting. They are not seperate, they both exist in the swing. Hips bring the hands into the hitting zone with the barrel of the bat staying over the shoulder through this rotational. From this position you can hit any location by whipping the bat to the ball. Hands extend through contact to give you carry. (you should talk about impulse here and allowing longer time to hit through the ball...same as in golf) Every hitter that I have coached that learned rotationally has bad upswing, drops bat head below ball to swing up, and does nothing but pop the ball up. Sure, video and pictures can be gone through and your rotational ideas can be used to explain why their swings are good, BUT that doesn't mean that is how you teach the swing.
>
> Using the fence drill WILL develop better hitting mechanics!! Bat Lag will lead to more bat speed and increase ability to get soft hits due to hitting inside half of ball.

You can still hit the inside half of the ball quite easily using rotational mechnics. Derek Jeter does it all the time. Pujols is very effective in bp doing taking this approach.

If you want someone to hit the inside of the ball just tell them to hit the center to inside half of the ball. It is that easy and with some practice can be conditioned into the swing. You can get a lot of quality hits and some good extra base hits for right handed hitters when doing this.

More hitters need to be taught to hit the center to inside of the ball. Which part of the baseball you hit is independent of the swing type.

I don't like the fence drill though because it removes bottom hand torque from the bat which is integral to hard hitting. If the purpose is to teach hitting inside the ball just teach hitting that part of the baseball.

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> > I practiced the "fence drill" almost everyday when working on my hitting mechanics. I was a very successful hitter with plenty of pop at 5'8. I've been accused of teaching linear mechanics then told in the same breath that my swing is rotational. Growing up learning from well-learned hitters at Florida State, I was never taught linear hitting or rotation hitting. They are not seperate, they both exist in the swing. Hips bring the hands into the hitting zone with the barrel of the bat staying over the shoulder through this rotational. From this position you can hit any location by whipping the bat to the ball. Hands extend through contact to give you carry. (you should talk about impulse here and allowing longer time to hit through the ball...same as in golf) Every hitter that I have coached that learned rotationally has bad upswing, drops bat head below ball to swing up, and does nothing but pop the ball up. Sure, video and pictures can be gone through and your rotational ideas can be used to explain why their swings are good, BUT that doesn't mean that is how you teach the swing.
> > 
> > Using the fence drill WILL develop better hitting mechanics!! Bat Lag will lead to more bat speed and increase ability to get soft hits due to hitting inside half of ball.
> 
> You can still hit the inside half of the ball quite easily using rotational mechnics.  Derek Jeter does it all the time.  Pujols is very effective in bp doing taking this approach.
> 
> If you want someone to hit the inside of the ball just tell them to hit the center to inside half of the ball.  It is that easy and with some practice can be conditioned into the swing.  You can get a lot of quality hits and some good extra base hits for right handed hitters when doing this.
> 
> More hitters need to be taught to hit the center to inside of the ball.  Which part of the baseball you hit is independent of the swing type.
> 
> I don't like the fence drill though because it removes bottom hand torque from the bat which is integral to hard hitting.  If the purpose is to teach hitting inside the ball just teach hitting that part of the baseball.

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